USA Dot Com is a blog covering politics and government from a conservative Christian perspective. Verne Strickland is a 50-year veteran of investigative journalism. This blog offers a take-no-prisoners style with a modicum of biting satire. Verne and his wife of 55 years, Durrene, live in Wilmington, NC.

Friday, October 5, 2012

WRAL News Poll: North Carolina wants voter IDs!

Verne Strickland Blogmaster / October 5, 2012

69% of NC voters polled want to require photo ID to vote -- WRAL

Raleigh, N.C. — North
Carolina voters overwhelmingly want people to present some form of
identification at the polls before casting a ballot, according to a WRAL
News poll released Tuesday.

SurveyUSA polled 641 registered
voters statewide between Saturday and Monday and found that 69 percent
want to require a photo ID to vote, while another 10 percent want an ID
that doesn't necessarily have a photo. Only 16 percent said voters
shouldn't have to present an ID at the polls.The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

The
idea seems to have support across the political spectrum, with 90
percent of Republicans, 56 percent of Democrats and two-thirds of
independents calling for a photo voter ID.

When examined through the lens of the presidential campaign, however, partisan fault lines start to appear.

Among supporters of Republican nominee Mitt Romney, 93 percent
support photo ID, and just 4 percent say no ID should be needed.
Meanwhile, only 46 percent of President Barack Obama's supporters want
to see a photo ID for voters, while 29 percent are calling for no ID.The
topic has been highly politicized.

Gubernatorial
candidate Pat McCrory urged voters this spring to take IDs to the polls
to make a point. U.S. Sen. Richard Burr says requiring identification is
just common sense. "You can't cash a check without photo ID. Is
the threshold for voting less than the threshold for cashing a check?"
Burr said Tuesday.
Democratic leaders and civil rights groups say there's a big difference – cashing a check is not a constitutional right.

Bob
Hall, executive director of political watchdog group Democracy North
Carolina, said requiring a photo ID would stop people from exercising
their right to vote.

"There are about 400,000 people that do not
have a photo ID," Hall said. "Most of them are elderly, (and) they've
stopped driving. They're disproportionately African-American. They're
poor, more often than not."
The threat of voter impersonation is a
fiction, he said, noting that study after study has found only a
handful of cases nationwide.

Johnnie McLean, deputy director of
the State Board of Elections, said most voter fraud involves
registrations, double voting or mail-in ballots. Supporters of photo
IDs may not realize that what they want at the polls wouldn't stop any
of those problems, she said.

"I think that what it's going to produce is simply a perceived level of comfort to those people," McLean said.